As the Infrastructure Safety Leadership Group adapts to a changing railway, members will keep listening to the front line, says RSSB’s Darryl Hopper.
– RSSB’s Darryl Hopper
The Infrastructure Safety Leadership Group (ISLG) was created in 1996.Then, as now, it represented the safety, health and sustainability needs of the principal contractor and designer communities, along with their all-important supply chains.
After all, trains still run on rails and still obey signalling systems, whether they be at the lineside or in the cab. And it looks like we’re doing a good job of it: a recent member review has shown that ISLG communicates well with its members, is inclusive and is the forum for infrastructure collaboration. As members have commented, “without groups like ISLG, we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on”. After all, and “ISLG membership gives a company gravitas.”
However, the railway is changing so ISLG is adapting to make sure it goes on representing rail infrastructure staff as those changes come in. We need more infrastructure voices, so we’re working more closely with other professional groups, such as the Trackworker Safety Alliance, the Mechanical & Electrical Engineers Group and the Rail Industry Environment Forum.
The plan is to form a network of these groups to help us share information and work to tackle issues around track and plant safety, road risk, fatigue, and sustainability. As you might expect, this will include looking at the evidence – and not just the numbers but the stories behind them and the findings from investigations.
What are the common themes? There’s very little that’s new, so a good idea in Norwich will be a good idea in Nottingham, Newport and everywhere else. There will be all kinds of analysis behind this to help bed any changes in, and a number of projects to reduce the risk from harm in health, safety, sustainability and wellbeing.
That doesn’t mean we’re going to take our eye off the site warden though; and while the industry and ISLG changes, we’re going to keep listening to the front line, take more action to cut the number of objects being left on the line, strive to improve road risk management, cut fatigue, and improve our understanding of runaway risk.
Our next steps will be to sort out how to align all our ideas, and how to forge a link between industry strategies and the reality of the railway.
You can find out more about the group here.